Content Filtering Using Your Wireless Router

This is such great information. I found out that just using the wireless router that I already have installed in my home, I can login to the settings and block certain categories to keep my kids safe from pornography and other harmful stuff! And it works not just on one computer, but all ALL the devices in your home that use the wireless internet through that router. devices! 


It's a little techie to set up, but not too bad. The hardest part is figuring out how to login to your router. I learned how to do mine from my brother-in-law, you basically enter the "URL" of your router into your address bar, then put in your password and open it up.

Once you get into your router settings, everything else is pretty easy to figure out. If you don't get it right away, do a little googling to figure it out, or send me a note and I'll see if I can help you. 

It's SO worth it to find this out - you can actually see every website opened by anyone using your wireless router, in real time. So you can make sure no one is browsing in the middle of the night, or see if your teen is really doing their chores or watching Netflix on their phone, hee hee (not that any of my kids would ever do that of course. . . .) 

Now remember, my jumbled friends, that with authority and power comes responsibility. As parents we need to balance our desire to keep our children safe with our respect for them as individuals, and trust as much as we can, only checking up when they give us reason to not trust them. And let them know you are doing it. That's my philosophy - be open with the kids about why you are restricting certain things and then LISTEN to their feedback. Depending on the age and maturity level of your child, there may be some things that you would automatically restrict without realizing that they are actually quite enjoyable for your child and not harmful like you assumed. So - LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN!

Here's some great counsel on the subject:

"We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. . . . No power or influence can or ought to be maintained . . . only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile— Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy; That he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death." 
~ (Doctrine and Covenants 121:39-44)